Last night I hosted a social media workshop for some members of PRSSA. I talked a lot on how to use social media as a job search tool, focusing a large part on LinkedIn. So many people have LinkedIn accounts but don’t know how to use it effectively. 

Here are three tips for effectively using LinkedIn:

1. Remind people of who you are. When you meet someone at a networking event or in a student organization or anywhere else, it’s definitely acceptable to connect with them on LinkedIn. What is not acceptable is to send them a message without reminding them of who you are. At these kinds of events, people are networking with tons of people. Change the default message to say, “Hi, I loved our conversation about X at Y and would love to connect with LinkedIn.” This is a simple way to make your network stronger and more meaningful.
2. Join groups. There are many benefits to joining groups on LinkedIn, and you don’t have to receive those daily emails to do it. The biggest complaint I heard about groups is that they send daily digest emails. These can be turned off from your settings on the group page. After that, use the group to make connections, find job postings and read valuable articles and discussions.
   
3. Follow companies. Like groups, it is great to follow companies in your industry or places you’d like to work. Company LinkedIn profiles have job listings and other cool features. The great thing about job postings on LinkedIn is that it shows you who you’re connected to in that company, so you can ask your connection to put in a good word. This is what networking is all about and that’s why LinkedIn is the best professional social network.
   

There are lots of ways you can use social media to your benefit when searching for jobs and internships. How do you use it?